Eating More Meals Does NOT Speed Up Your Metabolism

This is one of the biggest myths and misconceptions that I hear all the time in mainstream media and people trying to tell me how to eat healthy. Ask any trainer, nutritionist, doctor, diet guru…or whoever and they will probably all tell you the same thing “You need to eat small meals through out the day to speed up/keep your metabolism going”.

Really? Is that how it works? Our metabolism accelerates based on meal to meal frequency during a day? I don’t think so.

In fact, next time you hear someone say that just ask them to explain it in more detail and hear what they have to say then. In the meantime let’s go over what is happening and dispel this myth (as I have people who are overweight telling me that they need to eat 6x a day inorder to lose weight because some hollywood trainer wrote it in his latest book and that I am wrong).

Eating 6x a Day “Can” Help You Lose Weight … BUT …

Hey, I will be the first to admit it that eating 6x a day “can” work. Many people have proved it. But what people neglect to look at is WHY it works. It’s NOT because of some magical accelerated metabolic process associated with eating more often. Most people call this thermogenesis, where the body expels energy in the form of heat through what it has to do (such as the energy of digestion).

But here’s the fun part, if you eat the same amount of food in 6 meals…or 3 meals…isn’t that the same amount of digestion? So how can there be any advantage due to thermogenesis? (getting a bit ahead here)

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But let’s go back to the REAL reasons eating 6x a day works:

• People are recommended to eat more fibrous vegetables and protein to keep fuller
• Eating more often can help curb cravings and binge eating
• Smaller meals in right portions of carb/protein/fat can keep blood sugar/insulin stable and encourage more fat burning while in the “fed” state all day long
• At the end of the day people who get success are still in calorie deficit

So there you have it, eating 6x a day works only because it is calorie deficit at heart. So now one has to ask that if you can still eat the same amount of calories in 3 meals then wouldn’t you get the same results?

I can hear all the nutrionists and trainers around the world yelling at me at once “You’re wrong”…”You’re going to crash your metabolism”…and all the other things you hear so often. But honestly folks, where did this train of thought start?

Could it be originally from the bodybuilding/supplement/diet industry (a multi billion dollar industry!!) that preys on the fearof going into a catabolic state and wasting away muscle…so you need to buy more protein powder, bars, etc. Or could it be from one of the many newer weight loss companies making billions selling prepared or portioned out foods/bars/shakes specifically for eating 5-6x a day?

Could it be this is the greatest marketing sales pitch in the diet world today? I think so!